Discussions about the possibility
to divert NEOs in route of collision with the
Earth have been going on for more than 10 years.
The topic is particularly difficult to address
for many reasons. First, there is a lot of
concern about the means that should be adopted in
order to move a mountain in an adverse
environment such as space; second, it is not
clear at all what would be the best strategy to
achieve the desired goal; third, although
evereybody agrees that something should be done
in case of a clear threat, there is considerable
debate about the timing, size and operational
details of a diverting maneuver...

The Spaceguard Foundation
(SGF) is a private, non profit scientific
organization aimed at supporting and
co-ordinating NEO researches in the world http://spaceguard.ias.rm.cnr.it
The NEO Dynamic Site (NEODyS) is a service
offered by the University of Pisa (Italy). It
provides catalogues, computation of orbits, and
projection of the behavior of NEOs in the future,
in order to identify possible impacts in advance.
http://newton.dm.unipi.it/neodys/

Images of the heading:
courtesy of NASA; image of a Leonid fireball by Lovato,
1998